


A New Purpose

by MelodyoftheVoid



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Found Family, Gen, Zib learns feelings, hooray!, oh that's a fun tag, sometimes a family is one disaster child and 7 small bugs, we're giving this bug a family, zib is 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24710239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyoftheVoid/pseuds/MelodyoftheVoid
Summary: Sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways. Sometimes it gives a traumatized teenager 7 kids. It's an imperfect system.
Relationships: Zib & his smeets
Comments: 26
Kudos: 164





	A New Purpose

Nights were always the hardest. He’d heard stories of how terrible they could be at night and like a fool, he’d ignored the warnings. Now after two hours of wrangling he’d finally done it. The little smeet bastards were finally, _finally_ , asleep.

As Zib turned out the lights in the makeshift nursery he’d constructed on his ship, the Void-Cruiser, and slumped to the floor. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten into this situation, or how it got this far; he couldn’t find it in himself to regret any of it though. Maybe it was the remnants of Zim lacking the capacity for regret at all, or the universe telling him he’d done some good for once, but they were the one bright spot in the past however long of suffering he’d gone through.

~~A quiet voice in the back of his mind said 3 years. He doesn’t like to listen to that voice.~~

He hadn’t expected the ship to have any more cargo than the usual space trash. His original, and in hindsight shitty, plan was to scrounge up as many supplies as possible from Irken trash ships, single-handedly take down the Irken Armada, then get revenge on his alternate self and his Zim. Simple. Easy. That single-minded focus drove him for several months.

But that vessel wasn’t a trash ship. After he’d incapacitated the pilot, the cargo hold yielded not scrapped Voot parts and broken guns. No, he’d managed to hijack the specific ship that carted defective smeets off to their eventual demise. His PAK helpfully supplied that they’d be used as target practice for the Irken elite, as by that time any and all empathetic feelings were squashed and well. Solve two problems with one go. He’d gone into a mental rut at that particular thought. Caught between his hatred of the empire (and by extension Irkens) and the revolting idea that the young were that… Expendable.

A soft purring brought him back to the empty, darkened hold. Eyes still adjusting to the nigh pitch black, he looked down to see wide ruby-red eyes gazing up. Bright as anything. The little smeet nuzzled into his boot, purring and chirping. He wanted attention. In that singular moment, nothing else mattered. Zib’s disparate parts came together with a single purpose for the first time he could remember. Zib hugged the smeet tight to his chest, eyes welling with tears.

He hadn’t properly spoken Irken before that moment, but in hushed tones, he whispered, “God look at you, so small, so brave. I won’t let anything harm you. I swear.”

The color resemblance to his Zim struck him immediately, he sometimes dreamed of that color during the scant hours he did get sleep. A small part of him wanted to name it Zim Jr. just for laughs. Junior probably worked better.

The purring grew louder, and he suddenly could feel something else brush against his leg. Several somethings. Six new pairs of eyes gleamed up at him and with that his previous mission no longer mattered. These tiny beings had no one. No chance of surviving on their own. They’d been abandoned just like him.

Of course he took them in.

Sighing at the memory, Zib stood up to head toward the cockpit. He still had some work to do. Thankfully the owners of this particular rest stop asked few questions, so walking in with a herd of Irkens didn’t raise any eyebrow-adjacent parts. The few monies that he’d manage to pocket from the ships he’d robbed bought enough supplies to last a while, but he unfortunately needed a more permanent place with better supplies. As much as Zib wanted to claim full self-sufficiency out in space, his ship barely held itself together most days. There was only one place where he could safely hide out without drawing suspicion from the empire in some way. The little ones needed blankets and proper beds as well. He had to go to Earth.

A familiar coo brought his attention to the smallest of his tiny family: Tij.

“Too cold again?”

Tij nodded, tightening his piece of Zib’s jacket around himself. Wide violet eyes pleaded for a hug, and who was he to say no? Zib scooped him up, tucking the little bug into the much less cool jacket he bought to replace his trench coat. He felt the familiar tickle of tiny antennae against his jaw, a sign of contentment; any minute now he’d be down for the count. Tij struggled with staying warm, more than any of the others, so he needed almost constant attention. Zib felt his soft breaths, indicating that he’d drifted off.

Working around a sleeping smeet was a skill he’d become rather proud of.

According to the autopilot, it’d take another couple of days before the cruiser made it to Earth, so he could put together some kind of plan to avoid his alternate self. The convoluted tangle of feelings he still held about the Zimvoid, as well as the possibility that he might try and harm the smeets, made that scenario the worst case. Eh, second worst. Zim would be the last being he’d ever want to encounter.

He gently pet Tij, humming a soft lullaby all the while. In these quiet moments, he marveled at how small, yet mighty his child was. God, he was technically a dad. He’d get to see all of them grow up, all 7 of them.

He thought about Junior, the most destructive of them all. How a being so young could already know the ins and outs of bomb construction bewildered him. Thank goodness none of the others helped him or Junior might’ve succeeded. Not that he didn’t catch a green figure shuffling through the ship with a pile of parts much too big for his tiny body.

But Junior shared in Zim’s loyalty just as much as his chaotic nature. He’d snarled at the Vortian who’d made the mistake of verbally judging Gir for his missing arm. He’d double check the others before falling asleep. Zib could tell that Junior and Mem both had the older sibling instincts already after only a few weeks of knowing them.

And Mem, his little curly-q. He’d never seen antennae like hers before. She was born with two sets, both curled delicately into perfect spirals. Her superior hearing has prevented more than one utter disaster. Mostly where Suds, Kit, and Junior were involved. Little shits the lot of them. She hovered quietly around her siblings, always attentive. Her cyan eyes searching for bumps and scrapes. Taking initiative when someone needed to step in.

Thankfully he’d reduced these injuries with the help of some industrial foam and some duct tape. As it turns out most ships are not suitable for small Irkens. Go figure.

Then there were Suds and Kit, two polar opposite on the energy spectrum that caused just as much trouble as the reincarnation of Zim. Suds’ greyish skin stood out among their siblings, a possible combination with Vortian DNA, or a remnant of previous generations of Irkens. He couldn’t be sure. What he did know was that Suds possessed the patience of a saint and the spirit of a prankster. Kit on the other hand exuded energy like a radioactive isotope. Her footsteps matched the hum of the engine in their consistency. She loved to explore the nooks and crannies of the ship, causing Zib several heart attacks in the process.

She’d wormed her way into the trash chute once and only Yew’s insistence on keeping the trash in the ship prevented her from a sudden ejection into space. He kept her on a makeshift leash for several days after that.

Yew was his little enigma. Somehow always appearing right where things were about to happen. His wide purple-yellow gaze sometimes seemed to stare through time itself. He knew that Kit ended up in the trash chute, he’d alert Zib to any Irken authorities in the area, chirping louder when enemy ships tried to ambush them. His gift hurt him though. The smeet suffered from the whatever he saw in his sleep, needing to crawl next to Zib in order to calm down.

He never asked what Yew saw. He only tried to console the poor kid. But he knew that whatever gift his smeet had, when he learned to harness it one day, he’d be unstoppable.

But if there was one of his kids that he worried most about, it was Tij. The little guy was in the same clutch as the others but looked significantly smaller. He couldn’t regulate his own temperature, nor could he keep up with the others. Zib would check his PAK if he had the tools, but given the circumstances, made do with keeping Tij close at all times. Yet despite all of that, the lethargy, the lack of physical strength, Tij kept his siblings together, acting as a peacemaker.

Zib planted a kiss to the top of the sleeping smeet’s head, he hoped he could foster his strength, all of their strengths, and make them the best Irkens this universe will ever see.

A blip on the radar caught his attention before he let out a soft sigh. It was just an asteroid. Nothing major. That was a relief. Any major action meant awakened smeets. They needed their rest if they were going to grow up properly. He didn’t get proper sleep as kid and look at him now. Zib let out a small chuckle at the bad joke, the self-deprecating humor never left him did it.

All things considered it’d amplified over the years.

He checked the autopilot again, doing his best to ignore the siren song of sleep pulling at him. Thankfully he didn’t need much sleep, but the partially human body still has needs apparently and staying up for days on end taking care of 7 rambunctious kids takes a toll. Well the smeets would be back at full capacity when they woke up in a few hours, so he needed to keep up with them. Mind made up, Zib stood, gently petting Tij to put him back to sleep after the sudden movement.

Zib crawled into his bed, salvaged from the remains of the castle he’d built up eons ago. One of his only remaining ties to his old life, before the smeets, before the void, before he’d met his Zim for the first time. He thought back to the person he’d been then, been not even a few months ago.

That dark, all-consuming hatred, both toward himself and toward the Irken race as a whole drove him mad. He put multiple universes worth of innocent beings behind his reckless need to be the hero. Humans and aliens alike who’d done nothing to deserve the complete destruction he’d callously ignored. Some part of him assumed that he was beyond love, beyond caring. The other believed he’d never even receive love again.

But he did. He still cared, and he loved so much more than he thought possible. The smeets loved him back unconditionally, in new and unexpected ways. Tij purred against his chest when the fog got too thick, Mem kept the ship organized and in top shape, Suds and Kit put on little shows to cheer the others and him up. Junior helped cook, even refraining from antagonizing Gir to fry up the pancakes just right, and Gir patiently explaining the PAK functions Zib never learned to keep all 8 of them running in top shape.

As he drifted of, the comforting hum of machinery all around him, Zib thanked whatever power let him have this. He loved his new purpose, his new life. And for once, it loved him back.

**Author's Note:**

> See? I am not a complete monster. Thanks again to the discord and the Zib club for inspiring me to make this pure fluff. A picture of the babies for context! [My children](https://thefurriestofchows.tumblr.com/post/620840636078227456/shandzii-oops-he-found-more-0c)


End file.
